Holiday weekends expensive for ACC

Local Democracy Editor·NZ Herald·

24 Oct, 2014 04:00 PM2 mins to read

Janet Uttinger has suffered dozens of accidents around the home. Photo / Supplied

She has stood on a rake, fallen down stairs, cut her finger cooking and smashed her head on the corner of a window, but Janet Uttinger says she's not accident prone.

The Waikato woman is one of the 45 per cent of Kiwis who injure themselves in and around the home every year, according to statistics from the Accident Compensation Corporation.

ACC says most injuries happen in or around the home - and long weekends such as Labour Weekend when people are more likely to be doing DIY are no exception.

ACC spokeswoman Sarah Martin said people working on DIY projects should take special care

For Ms Uttinger there's been so many accidents around the house she can't remember them all. One was "standing on a rake and just about knocking myself out when I was gardening", leaving a "big egg" on her head.

The 55-year-old also recalled "gardening and standing up and just about impaling myself on the aluminium window joinery. That one really hurt." Another time she needed 13 stitches to her ring finger after slicing it open with a knife.

She once fell down two flights of stairs in Rarotonga. Another time she scraped half the skin off her behind while getting out of the bath, coming too close to a central bath spout.

Despite all her mishaps Ms Uttinger has only used ACC once, when she broke a bone in her foot a few months ago after catching her little toe on a bed corner.

Following Labour Weekend last year there was a total of 15,470 claims costing more than $11.2 million to date. The biggest cause of home injuries is falls, which account for around 40 per cent. About 45 per cent of falls happen to "working age" people, those aged 20 to 64.

The most common causes of accidents are lifting, lowering, loading and unloading, walking, running, and children playing.